Book releases

Two Thousand Years of Non-Urban History

Park View building, Mina el Hosn, Solidere
01100 Beirut
Lebanon

Two Thousand Years of Non-Urban History revisits the founding principles of architectural and landscape discourse in the Arabian Peninsula. Exploring examples of pre-oil planning, from desert kites and fish traps to water channels, the publication challenges conventional ways of understanding architecture’s relationship to its environment. It examines how the oil economy transformed landscapes and erased earlier spatial traditions, proposing instead an alternative genealogy rooted in geology, agriculture, mariculture, and seasonality. Produced by Civil Architecture, the book combines historical research with architectural projects that imagine new trajectories for the region.

Images of "Two Thousand Years of Non-Urban History" book by Kaph Books. Images courtesy of Civil Architecture.

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Nov. 12 – 15, 2026